Friday 27 July 2012 07.05 EDT
First published on Friday 27 July 2012 07.05 EDT

1) Afghanistan win their first ever Olympic medal

For most countries, having major sports stars is as routine as your train being late in the morning, but not for Afghanistan. From 1936 to 2004, they competed in 11 Olympic Games without so much as a sniff of a medal, although given that this is a country that has been ravaged by civil war, invading forces and the Taliban's reign of terror, that is hardly a surprise. In that context, with rather bigger problems to concern themselves with, you might assume that Afghans would not have cared too much about their paltry Olympic record. Not so.

Eleven fruitless Olympics having come and gone, Afghanistan did not expect much from Beijing 2008. Little did they know that in China their sporting history would be changed for ever. Little did Rohullah Nikpai know that his life would be changed for ever. Born in Kabul, he took up taekwondo when he was 10, but his family was forced to leave the capital during one of the country's various conflicts, the Nikpais eventually settling in a refugee camp in Iran. There he became a member of the Afghan refugee team, before eventually returning to Kabul in 2004 to train in more prestigious surroundings.

The training paid off and in 2008, at the age of 21, Nikai was picked to represent Afghanistan in the men's 58kg competition in Beijing. In the preliminary round, Nikai edged past Levent Tuncat, beating the German 4-3. Yet it seemed his summer was over when he lost his quarter-final to Mexico's Guillermo Pérez, the eventual champion. However a repechage was used to determine the bronze medal winner, competed between those defeated by the two finalists. Nikpai won his first match against Britain's Michael Harvey to set up a bronze medal match against the two-times world champion Juan Antonio Ramos of Spain, and by now everyone in Afghanistan was paying attention.

Incredibly Nikpai demolished Ramos, thrashing him 4-1 to become the first ever Afghan to win an Olympic medal and even though it was "only"ronze, it might as well have been platinum given the jubilation back home.

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, awarded him a house at the government's expense, sponsors swarmed all over him and fans flocked to Kabul's Ghazi stadium to celebrate in a venue where the Taliban had once stoned women to death. After years of pain – both in the sporting and the real sense – one bronze medal represented a symbol of hope for Afghans. "I hope this will send a message of peace to my country after 30 years of war," Nikpai said.

Now he's after gold at London 2012, although his reputation will surely not be hurt if he falls short. After all, Rohullah Nikpai is not one in a million. He's much more than that. He's one in 30 million. JS

2) Argentina take basketball gold in 2004

Maybe that should actually read "USA doesn't take basketball gold", because for those Stateside, that was the really exceptional thing in 2004. The US men had won every Olympic basketball tournament since 1988. In the 2003 Tournament of the Americas, the qualifying event for Athens, they thrashed Argentina in the final. Messed them up real nice. "We're the best in the world," crowed the Indiana Pacers forward-centre Jermaine O'Neal.

Even a heavy dose of pessimism could not have prepared USA fans for a mediocre group stage that included a pounding by Puerto Rico. "After the US lost to Lithuania 94-90 last Saturday, Tim Duncan said: 'This helps our confidence because we played well.' Has it come to this?" wondered Jack McCallum, in Sports Illustrated. "The mighty US spinning a message of optimism after giving up 94 points in a 40-minute game? Only a gold medal will keep men's hoops from being the feel-bad story of the Olympics." There was talk of root-and-branch NBA reform after an 89-81 defeat to Argentina in the semi-finals. (Normal service was resumed when the two nations met again at the same stage in 2008, USA winning 101-81.)

Athens is a blot on the USA's record but it was not by dumb luck that Argentina won a first Olympic basketball gold. They had been picking up titles in the three years preceding the Olympics, including the 2002 Fiba World Championship, at which they defeated the US by a similar margin to that in Athens. They arrived in Greece as reigning South American champions and in their first group match beat the world champions Serbia and Montenegro 83-82 thanks to a storming first quarter and a last-second basket. They had two of the tournament's highest points scorers and its standout player, Manu Ginobili. "This is the most exciting moment ever," said the coach, Rubén Magnano. His successor, Sergio Hernández, led Argentina's "golden generation" to another medal in 2008, when they won the third-place playoff. GT

Sometimes sport defies all logic. The 2005 Champions League final, say, or Lukas Rosol defeating Rafael Nadal in the second round of Wimbledon this year. That's part of its appeal, and few athletes have demonstrated that more gloriously than Vénuste Niyongabo at the Atlanta Games in 1996.

Niyongabo comes from Burundi, a tiny country in east Africa that was not even a member of the International Olympic Committee until 1993 after attempts by officials to gain entry to the 1988 and 1992 Games in Seoul and Barcelona had respectively fallen on deaf ears. These were immensely difficult times. In the buildup to Atlanta, Burundi suffered greatly, with the New York Times reporting that "tension between rival Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups has left an estimated 150,000 people dead in the past three years." The report continued: "There have been assassinations, guerrilla raids and constant tension. In late July, 13 of the 16 Burundian provinces were designated 'red zones' which is a United Nations term that means one level above 'very tense'.''

Niyongabo, a Tutsi, made his name in the 1500m, winning silver in the World Junior Championships in 1992, before swiftly making a natural progression to senior events. It was not long before several victories meant he was regarded as one of the top runners in the world, which was a remarkable feat for a competitor from such a troubled country. Indeed Burundi's lowly status presented problems for Niyongabo, not least at the World Indoor Championships in Barcelona in 1995.

Arriving in Spain for the tournament, he presented his Burundi passport and was promptly seized by immigration officials and questioned about his identity for three hours. One phone call, either by the officials or by Niyongabo, might have established that he was one of the finest 1500m runners in the world, but in another fine moment for bureaucracy, that was not permitted. Without a visa, Niyongabo was forced to return to Italy, where he lived and trained, spending a night on a bench in Rome's train station before reaching his home in Siena. All of which meant he missed the race, giving a new meaning to a false start. "I felt like a homeless person," he said.

Happily a few months later, he had no such problems getting into Gothenburg for the World Championships, where he won bronze in a race won by the exceptional Algerian Noureddine Morceli, who was set to be one of Niyongabo's opponents at the Olympics in America.

Only Niyongabo would not be running the 1500m at the Olympics and this time it had nothing to do with interfering immigration officials. Instead in one of the biggest gambles of all time, Niyongabo chose to participate in the 500m, a race he had never previously run in his entire life, which meant that his compatriot Dieudonné Kwizera could take part in the 1500m. Niyongabo's decision was thoroughly selfless, the veteran Kwizera having missed out on the two previous Olympics.

Despite being a novice at this distance, Niyongabo made it to the final. It would be only the third time he had run the 5000m. In the final were the reigning Olympic champion, Germany's Dieter Baumann, the Olympic silver medallist, Kenya's Paul Bitok, and the home hopeful, Bob Kennedy.

At the start of the race, much of the focus from the commentator, David Coleman, was on the Kenyans, Baumann and Kennedy, Niyongabo's presence largely treated as a curious anomaly; indeed with six laps to go, Coleman noted that Niyongabo was "not showing at all" and questioned his apparently foolhardy decision to abandon the 1500m.

Baumann never looked like retaining his gold, but Bitok and his fellow Kenyan, Tom Nyariki, ran strongly, while Kennedy was pushing hard, cheered on by the home fans. Then, with three laps to go, Niyongabo emerged in second place and with two laps to go, he was in the lead. Kennedy momentarily pushed ahead, to considerable excitement in the crowd, but Niyongabo regained his lead and then, unbelievably, stormed off into the distance, his unrivalled sprint ability proving pivotal. Meanwhile in the 1500m, there was an inevitable victory for the peerless Morceli. The gamble had paid off and Burundi had their first and only Olympic gold medallist.

"It was not an easy choice, but the choice turned out to be so good for my country,'' Niyongabo said. Call it beginner's luck. When he tried to defend his title in Sydney four years later, he finished 15th in his semi-final. JS

4) Babe Didriksen on the podium in 1932

In 1932 a Dallas insurance company sent Babe Didriksen, the 21-year-old secretary who had been winning titles with almost embarrassing ease and along the way set three world records in two years, as its sole representative at the 1932 AAU Championships. The event doubled as the US Olympic tryouts and Didriksen (who was nicknamed 'Babe' by her mother as a toddler but revelled in telling people that it was down to her fierce reputation on the baseball field) booked her ticket to Los Angeles by winning six gold medals.

She had to settle for just three Olympic events because medical experts of the day believed that sport damaged women's bodies (this was less a welfare issue and more a crisis for marriage and procreation), and opted for three of the four events in which she had recently set world records: javelin – open to women for the first time at the 1932 Games – high jump, and the 80m hurdles.

In the javelin Didriksen won gold with her first effort, which landed 19cm beyond Germany's Ellen Braumüller's throw to set a new Olympic record of 43.69m, but her medals in the remaining two events were far less straightforward. Having equalled the 80m hurdles world record in the heats, Didriksen was clocked alongside her US team-mate Evelyne Hall at a new record of 11.7sec in the final. The Los Angeles Games were the first to use photo finishes, but finish-line judges still had priority, and after about half an hour's deliberation, Didriksen was given the gold.

A later review of the photo evidence showed that there was nothing to separate the two athletes. Hall, who kept a copy of the photo for the rest of her life, felt that it showed her leg ahead of Didriksen's at the end of one of the Olympics' most controversial races ever. Babe was closer to the official than Hall and other athletes were adamant that his perspective, and the fact that she wheeled away loudly celebrating while Hall's friends in the stands silently signalled "first" to her, influenced the decision. There were even under-the-breath accusations of Didriksen celebrating so brashly because she knew Hall had breasted the tape.

If so, karma struck in the last of Didriksen's events, the high jump. In the 1930s the scissors leap still dominated the event, but Didriksen opted for a kind of pre-Fosbury Flop. Tied at a world-record-breaking 1.65m with another team-mate, Jean Shiley, she was demoted to silver in the gold medal playoff for illegitimate technique – "diving" – despite the fact that she had been going over head first throughout the competition.

Finishing the Games with two golds and a silver (at a time when the women's athletics events numbered just six), Didriksen was one of the year's celebrities, being named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year. She relinquished her amateur status to cash in on advertising offers but soon found that as a woman, earning a living from sport was a bit trickier than that. She toured the United States playing exhibition events (including donkey-back baseball and playing the harmonica while running on a treadmill) before settling on an altogether more dignified way of life: she took up golf and was instrumental in establishing the LPGA. GT

5) Pat O'Callaghan wins Ireland's first gold in 1928

As London prepared to host the Games in 1948, the Guardian mused upon the ecstasy in contemplating the Olympic athlete at his work. Who could fail to be transported by the sight of "Pat O'Callaghan swinging the 16lb hammer aloft, turning once, twice, three times, and even four, a whirling mass of co-ordinated mind and muscle, and finally launching the great ball so that it soars away on high and plunges down again to earth some 200 feet away, and farther than any man has thrown before?"

O'Callaghan came from a sporty family – his brothers Sean and Con were also competitive athletes – but Pat was the irritatingly brilliant youngest sibling, who had qualified as a doctor while he was still too young to actually practice. He took up a number of sports but favoured hammer throwing, even making his own hammers out of bicycle parts to train relentlessly with. In 19 Olympics, the Republic of Ireland have won eight gold medals; O'Callaghan got the first two, in 1928 and in 1932.

He arrived in Amsterdam in 1928 as the national champion but could get nowhere near his best in qualifying, going through in third with 47.49m, a distance that would have been good enough only for sixth in the final, which was held later the same day. In the lead with his qualifying throw of 51.29m was the Swede Ossian Skiold, so O'Callaghan put his psychology modules to work: he picked up Skiold's hammer and threw 51.39m to take the gold medal.

O'Callaghan became an instant hero in Ireland and his reputation was boosted even further when he went to Los Angeles four years later – having been asked to pay the wages of his replacement at the Department of Health while he was away, later being repaid from an expenses account – and threw more than 150cm further than the man in second, Finland's Ville Porhola. Again he struggled early on as his spikes caught on the cinder surface in the circle, but having taken a hacksaw to the soles of his shoes before the final round, he threw a winning 53.92m.

Adolf Hitler was reportedly so impressed by O'Callaghan that he dispatched a camera crew to Ireland to film him and other Irish hammer throwers training in order to analyse their physique and technique. In 1934, O'Callaghan went to Hamburg to be filmed again, and to have his legs and shoulders x-rayed – Hitler was leaving nothing to chance in his bid to fashion German champions. Thanks to an argument over jurisdiction, no Irish team competed in Berlin in 1936, and O'Callaghan watched from the stands as Germany's Karl Hein won gold and set a new Olympic record. GT

The past was a foreign country for Lennox Lewis, who represented Canada when he won gold in 1988 by beating Riddick Bowe in the super-heavyweight division. The significance of the bout grew over time, peaking four years later when the two failed to agree a fight for the world heavyweight title.

The Olympic fight itself was relatively straightforward. Lewis hit Bowe with a couple of big rights in the second, at which point it was stopped, perhaps prematurely, by the East German referee. "He hit me with three good shots, I've gotta admit, but I was OK, clearly," Bowe said straight after the fight. "I was even talking to him. I've seen guys practically killed in the ring."

For Lewis, it was a rite of passage. "The gold medal is something that I have always wanted, having come close to winning it before," he said years later. "The instant when you win it is a defining moment. It is like: 'Yo, now I have the gold ticket for becoming a professional boxer'. You leave your days as an amateur behind and start preparing yourself to be a man in the world of professional boxing."

It took Lewis a while to be taken seriously in Britain; it seems incredible with hindsight, but before a 1991 fight with Gary Mason, some were backing against Lewis. The realisation that he was the real thing came with a devastating two-round defeat of the dangerous Donovan "Razor" Ruddock in 1992. That was an eliminator to fight for the title against the winner of Bowe v Evander Holyfield a few weeks later.

Bowe became the first man to beat Holyfield, but the fight with Lewis never happened. The WBC had threatened to strip Bowe of his belt if he did not fight Lewis; Bowe famously dumped his belt in the bin. There was plenty of trash talk to go with the trash can; a spokeswoman for the company that held rights to both Bowe and Lewis said they were "getting along these days about as well as Prince Charles and Lady Di".

Most felt Bowe deliberately swerved the fight, and he became known as "Chicken Bowe". (Sadly for those who wanted to see the fight, such name-calling did not impact upon him as it did Marty McFly.) Bowe himself says Lewis didn't fancy it. "He ducked me any way he could. I mean he knew, with me being champion, I'm not gonna give him 50-50 [when splitting the purse], you know what I mean? So he used that as an escape. He knew he couldn't whoop me so he just avoided me the best way he could."

It has become one of the great fantasy bouts. Bowe was a brilliant talent – the legendary trainer Eddie Futch said: "A lot of big men can jab and some are big punchers but there are not many who are great fighters at close range. Riddick had all three" – and plenty feel he might have had too much for Lewis at that stage in their careers. While Lewis went on to achieve greatness, Bowe, like so many in the fight game, soon became a sportsman with a great future behind him. His life started to unravel, and his estimated fortune of $15m in the mid-1990s dwindled to nothing. A couple of years ago he was selling his autograph at a flea market in New Jersey. RS